


Creepy Crawlies

by otapocalypse



Series: The Cure to All Ailments [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Adopted!Yuri Plisetsky, Blood, Childhood Memories, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Parent-Child Relationship, Podium Family, Young!Yuri Plisetsky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 03:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10982232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otapocalypse/pseuds/otapocalypse
Summary: Yuri recalls a particularly dramatic childhood memory





	Creepy Crawlies

He’d gotten the call not even a few hours after dropping Yuri off. Nearly speeding through traffic after a half hearted excuse about his kid at work, Yuuri quickly dialed up Victor and explained the situation. “He only goes to half day kindergarten!” His husband had exclaimed. “They can’t keep him in the nurse’s office until lunchtime?” Yuuri had rolled his eyes. “You know that isn’t how it works, Vitya. The little things spread fast, they can’t just isolate him for a few hours…” Victor had then gone on to worry about receiving Yuri’s little problem himself, and Yuuri could almost picture the man’s hand flying to his silvery hair. 

When he finally arrived at the school, he was met with a tearful little blonde clinging tightly to a stuffed tiger he carried everywhere with him. “Hey, what’s the matter?” Yuuri asked gently, crouching down. “They don’t hurt, do they?” Yuri only shook his head and looked up at him with those round, green eyes. “Am I gonna have to cut off all my hair, mama?” He’d whimpered quietly. “Oh, honey.” Yuuri cooed, lifting the six year old up and trying not to laugh with relief. “No, sweetheart, you don’t have to cut off all your hair. That’s not how lice are treated.”

He’d only answered with a tiny, “Okay,” and Yuuri had shot a grateful look at the nurse over Yuri’s shoulder as he signed the boy out, then carried him out of the school. The ride home was quiet, with Yuri still hugging his tiger closely and sniffling every so often. Yuuri was dreading telling him that a part of getting rid of lice was to treat everything- including his toys. He’d have to be without his stuffed animals for a least a couple of weeks. He wondered briefly if he should wait until Victor was home to relay that particular bad news, but then figured it was for the better that Yuri knew sooner, rather than later.

It was when they were finally home, and Yuuri was picking through the blonde’s hair with a simple lice kit he’d picked up from the store on the way home. The boy’s crying had finally calmed to just a blank stare, and his tense grip had loosened considerably on his stuffed tiger. Yuuri gently combed through the blonde strands, often picking out several nits and occasionally a large, black bug, which he squashed mercilessly in his fingers each time. “Well, the nurse wasn’t wrong. You do have lice.” This had, incidentally, triggered another bout of crying, during which Yuuri held off on combing through the boy’s hair and only held him close, patting his back and reassuring him it wasn’t the end of the world. 

He’d decided to hold off on the treatments for the first night, getting Yuri to calm down enough by dinner time to have a few bites to eat. Victor joined them soon after, and no one spoke anything of the dreaded little insects crawling around in Yuri’s hair. Their dinner was interrupted by a call, Yuri’s grandfather, who’d heard of the incident and Yuri’s reaction, as well. “Now, Yuratchka, listen- those things can jump up to three meters…” An incorrect bit of information at best, and the sniffles started up again, escalating into full-blown crying as Nikolai went on. There was no consoling Yuri that night.

“Look at it this way,” Yuuri had said, a few days later, as he was lathering Yuri’s hair up with a dry conditioner meant to flush out any lice. “You don’t have to go to school until they’re gone.” After a few days had passed, the lice had become less of a death sentence and more of an annoyance, and it showed in the way Yuri acted, crying less and complaining more. Presently, the boy scoffed. “The one good thing to come out of these hellbugs.” Yuuri frowned a bit. “Hey, language.” Yuri ‘hmm’ed at that, but just went back to the coloring book he’d been given to pass the time during the treatments. There were no tigers in the book, but there was a leopard, which he was currently working on, very focused. Victor had made the mistake of calling it a cheetah and had suffered his son’s wrath.

“We’re going to have to treat your sheets too,” he ventured cautiously. Yuri shrugged. “That’s fine. I don’t get cold at night even without my bed stuff.” Yuuri frowned again. “You know your bed stuff includes your stuffies too, right?” Yuri stiffened up, and Yuuri could see the tears spring to his eyes. “I can’t even keep one out?” Yuuri sadly shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, sweetie. They all have to go into the bags, if you want to get rid of the lice.” All things considered, the boy had taken the news well. Yuuri had even let him help bag his toys; Yuri had been enthusiastic at the offer, giving each their own personalized goodbye and kiss on the nose before stuffing them down into the bags.

“It’s for your own good,” the blonde said seriously, staring into the blue eyes of his favored white tiger. “You’ve got lice too, from me, and this is going to make you better. We’ll see each other again in a couple of weeks. I promise.” He then hesitated for a moment, before foregoing the kiss on the nose and instead giving the tiger a tight hug around the neck, before setting him inside with his friends gently. That night, he didn’t cry. Not even when he scratched his head so badly he tore open the first sore on his scalp. He only shuffled to his parent’s room, hands bloodied, and calmly told them what had happened.

After the first sore came several others, and Yuri’s scalp became a mess of scabs and fresh blood and pulled hair. He was often miserable, always complaining of his head itching or hurting, or both, and more often than not he woke up with patches of blood on his skin or mattress. And without his one item of comfort, he was clearly growing disheartened. Yuuri and Victor did their best to keep him distracted- drawing after drawing of every feline that existed ended up on the fridge, until there was no space left and Yuri grew bored. Video games were next, but those didn’t last nearly as long as the coloring; it was hard for Yuri to scratch his head and play video games, he said, and he soon refused any offers of the controller for Player 1.

The treatments were working, however, and each day Yuuri combed out less and less grown lice, though the nits were still there in high numbers, it seemed they were hatching at a slower and slower rate. Then came the day where they found no lice, and no nits, and Yuri begged to have his stuffed animals back, just three, just two, just one. Yuuri, cautious that it was a fluke, convinced him to wait another day. One day lice-free became two, then three, and on the third day Yuuri let the boy tug his tiger free of the garbage bags and hug him tight.

The fluffy white cat soon joined the tiger, then the stuffed lion, then the rest of everything that had been on Yuri’s bed before. The day was spent rearranging his pillows, blankets, and toys until everything was exactly perfect, just the way it was before. He was allowed to return to school, though he still had calls to the nurse when he inevitably picked at a scab that was still around, or scratched a new one into his head when the memories of the lice crawling through his hair sent him itching at the phantom feelings until his fingers came away red. They tried every over the counter treatment they could find, from tubes of ointment to specialized shampoos and washes. Victor figured the fact that the sores never became infected was a miracle. Yuri wouldn’t get relief until he was sent to the doctors, and poked and prodded until he bit one of them. They quickly prescribed an antibacterial cream, and the pain and itching cleared up within a couple of weeks.

The sores healed, more or less, leaving behind only a couple of scars that were easily hidden by his long hair later in life. His problem with picking stuck around, however, despite Victor and Yuuri’s efforts, and later his own, to direct his nervous energy into a less destructive habit. Eventually the pain had become a distant memory, and he only looked back on the time as one where he got out of school for free and had his hair played with daily. 

If was after one of his intense training sessions, years later, that the pain was recalled by a simple conversation with Otabek. They’d showered and were dressing in the locker room, when Otabek had gently teased Yuri’s braids free, ruffling a hand through his blonde hair and earning a pleased hum, when his fingertips brushed over a rough spot, something he hadn’t come to associate with Yuri. He tilted his head slightly, parting the other’s hair. “Have you ever had lice?” Yuri shuddered and straightened up. “Never mention that word to me again.”


End file.
